I have discovered the Delicious Sleep and it makes me so happy.
I have always been something of a morning person. This is generally when my brain works best, and because I am something of a procrastinator, I am much better at getting up early and getting something done than I am staying up late and powering through. I used to be the late night power through person in college, but the morning switch worked in law school and I have stuck with it since. Then, I had kids and being a morning person was an absolute job requirement, and I was pretty good at that. (I was not so good at the night stuff, when I would fall asleep in the middle of reading a story and begin to talk my dream. “Mom! That doesn’t make sense!” was an oft-repeated phrase.)
And it was compounded by being a working mom, who traveled pretty frequently. I would always pick the day trip with an ungodly early morning flight time or drive time in order to reduce the number of nights away, even though this often meant a 14+ hour day across time zones.
Even after the kids started to sleep in weekend and summer mornings, I would still get up. Partially to have some time to myself or clean up or get stuff done (or all of the above) but mostly because of the dogs. As a not great night person I would somewhat ignore their evening needs and put the emphasis on getting up and going for a walk in the morning. Then, once I was up, I was up and the day would begin.
This part hasn’t changed now that the kids are out of house. The cat is particularly insistent, oh, from about 5:30 am on that he is starving and will surely perish if I don’t give him his half can of kibble. The dog wants whatever I am doing for the cat, plus he wants to go outside. Even if Buda doesn’t want to get up, the cat will taunt him so he’s nervous and anxious, and I need to separate them. Or the cat will taunt me. Whatever gets me up to feed him.
What has changed is that now I realize I don’t have to stay up. I can get up, take care of their needs then crawl right back into my still semi-warm pile of comforters and fall back to sleep. For HOURS. (Today, it was almost 10 o’clock.) And it’s the best and deepest sleep I’ve ever had. It’s downright delicious.
Every time I do it, I can’t believe I will be able to fall back to sleep. And even that is OK. I’ve convinced myself that I would be just as happy just resting for a bit more. But every time I’ve given myself that little pep talk, I’ve ended up falling asleep and when I wake up I am so refreshed I can’t quite believe it.
And the pets are just as happy. I think they like it better, too. They’ve eaten, taken care of their needs, and at least for Buda, instead of watching me slightly nervously, he settles down right next to me and becomes a warm lump. Then Mischa settles in on the other side and a Delicious Sleep is had by all.
I could become very used to this.
